Note to sportscasters

by tigtog on February 6, 2009

A batsman being bowled at 98 is not accurately described as “tragically failed to make his century”.

If he was hit by lightning and died, that would be tragic.

Going out by 2 runs under a number that only means something because it has two plump zeroes after a 1? That is a disappointment given the disproportionate reverence attached to “getting a century”.

‘cos, you know, last I saw: his team was leading from a strong position after his contribution to the score. Even if they weren’t, and those 2 runs were a cliffhanger that meant winning or losing the entire game, it still wouldn’t be “tragic”. It would be sad, for the fans, but not tragic.

I can hear the responses now: “what do you expect from the talking heads of the jockstrap brigade?” As long as that is your response, you will continue to receive the egregious hyperbole that you deserve.

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Tagged as: egregious hyperbole, peeves

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This article was written by tigtog

tigtog (aka Viv) lives in Sydney, Australia: husband, 2 kids, cat, house, garden, just enough wine-racks and (sigh) far too few bookshelves. Viv web-wrangles for hire and edits Gagging For It (Oz Comedy News). tigtog is the founder of Hoyden About Town and Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog.

tigtog has written 1867 posts for Hoyden About Town. If you liked this post, you might like to subscribe to the feed via RSS or EMAIL to get instantly updated for more posts like this.

{ 7 comments }

1 lilacsigil February 6, 2009 at 9:04 pm: OMG, you’re un-Australian! *sends you big un-Australian hugs*

I still don’t understand why a good third of the news is sports. Surely anyone who cares already watched the game? I suppose that’s why I don’t watch the news anymore!
2 Shaun February 6, 2009 at 9:42 pm: Blasphemer!
3 Ariane February 6, 2009 at 10:58 pm: Oh, but Tigtog, he’s a batsman who likes to score runs! And he was making a captain’s knock! And this could be the end of Australian cricket!

I am a pretty big fan of cricket, but I don’t feel anything that happens in the ordinary course of a game could reasonably described as a tragedy. I also get really irritated by people who claim a team doesn’t deserve to win on the basis of the characters of the players. Gee, what a shock, we treat them all like gods and then complain when they behave like arrogant gits. Or at least, members of the opposition are arrogant gits. It’s a GAME people. :)

Ariane’s last blog post..A day in the life of Tokyo
4 QoT February 7, 2009 at 8:49 am: I was getting *so* frustrated at the commentators yesterday. Neither team, nor their fans, are served by blatantly *stupid* how-can-we-spin-this-so-Australia-looks-good bollocks. (Which is not to say Kiwi commentators are much better, they just had mostly-Aussies on).

What annoyed me a lot more, though, is the Channel 9 habit of making cricket commentators hawk ridiculous TV shows through pathetically-obviously-pre-scripted segues throughout the coverage. “And it looks like we’ve got a blitz going on here … [QoT looks at low run rate and lack of recent wickets, gets confused] … and speaking of blitzes, don’t miss Domestic Blitz on Tuesdays …” [QoT throws remote at TV] RICHIE BENAUD DESERVES BETTER THAN GODAWFUL REALITY-TV-HYPING.
5 Rachel February 7, 2009 at 10:05 am: At one stage, many moons ago you used to be able to mute the TV and listen to ABC radio instead. That is until Kerry O’Keefe started commentating with his school-boy jokes and sexist rubbish. Despite many emails to ‘Aunty’, he continues to retain his gig, even though he contributes nothing of value or interest to the commentary. So you go back to Ch 9, only to be innundated with spruiking of other Ch 9 products, or betting agencies and odds! It seems it is too much to ask for sensible, rational, factual analysis of what is happening on the field. Maybe the answer to these silly men who can’t keep their perspective in check is to have more women in commentary!
6 QoT February 7, 2009 at 7:20 pm: I would really just settle for not letting really-recently-retired-players-who-are-really-good-mates-with-the-current-team in the commentary box. Either that or balance it out with some recently-retired-players-who-are-really-good-mates-with-the-other-team (i.e. Adam Gilchrist can be as partisan if he likes, he just has to share time with Stephen Fleming).
7 hellonhairylegs February 8, 2009 at 9:42 am: The privilege stinks up the air next to the radio. They say stupid sexist and racist stuff, talk about players have “serving their country” and then celebrate when someone on the other team is injured, usually as a result of something jerk-ish the Australian team has done. It reminds me of nerdboy music fans arguing about Offspring being “the worst thing EVA.”